


I Will Greet You Every Dawn

by QueenOfPlotTwists



Series: 31 Day Yu-Gi-October Halloween Challenge [13]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: 31 Days Of Halloween, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Fae & Fairies, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fox Fairy, Fox Maiden, Foxes, Halloween Challenge, M/M, October Prompt Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:02:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26991100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfPlotTwists/pseuds/QueenOfPlotTwists
Summary: The first time his husband slipped out in the middle of the night on a new moon, Yugi thought nothing of it. The second time it occurred he thought, perhaps Atem was merely out for a midnight stroll. The third time it happened, however, he became curious of where he was going...and what he's hiding...who does his beloved become in the dark?Lucky Day 13 of 31 Days of Yu-Gi-October Halloween Challenge https://horrificmemes.tumblr.com/post/165553173026/31-horrific-days-v2-october-writing-challengePrompt 21: Secret
Relationships: Mutou Yuugi/Yami Yuugi
Series: 31 Day Yu-Gi-October Halloween Challenge [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947991
Comments: 16
Kudos: 19





	I Will Greet You Every Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> This one was inspired by my love of foxes--which I am not shy about ;)  
> This particular idea was inspired by the Celtic Short story the Witch of Fife, a personal favorite, and the oldest known story of the kitsune/fox-wife "Come and Sleep", a very sweet story.
> 
> Lucky Day 13 of 31 Days of Yu-Gi-October Halloween Challenge https://horrificmemes.tumblr.com/post/165553173026/31-horrific-days-v2-october-writing-challenge
> 
> Prompt 21: Secret

I Will Greet You Every Dawn

The first time his husband slipped out in the middle of the night, Yugi thought nothing of it. The second time it occurred he thought, perhaps Atem was merely out for a midnight stroll. The third time it happened, however, he became curious of where he was going.

He knew Atem fancied a midnight stroll or a walk through the woods, and more than once Yugi had found him dancing in the orchard, or playing in the glade with the butterflies, or sitting on the thick roots of the willow and dipping his bare feet in the creek. It was how they had met, after all, and Yugi had loved his flighty and capricious personality. His zest brought light and love and laughter to the house and the mercantile, where it had once been empty and lonely in the passing of Yugi’s grandfather. Now there was someone to share in the labor of crafting a life for Atem embraced everything he did, no matter how simple or domestic with gusto and zeal. He filled the mercantile with flowers from the garden, walked the woods for berries and mushrooms and wild onions, and loved to shop the market streets along the shore at evening so he could watch the ships come in. Their evenings were spent together having picnics in the park, or running through the rain and playing in the leaves or sharing fantastical stories by the fire. And at night when they lied together and made love, it seemed the edges of the house dissolved into the vast green acers of the forests and the fields and the sky-strewn sky. Yugi adored his wild heart, his spirited sense of wonder, and his flighty flights of fancy.

But these evening escapades were not one of them—he never disappeared into the evening and stayed out all night only to return in the morning, looking quite pale and tired as though he had traveled far or worked hard. And yet it had become his habit to slip on his favorite scarlet smoking jacket and vanish in the late evening when the twilight was just starting to rise heralding the new moon when the night was darkest and the sky was a blanket of blackness speckled with stars.

Some of neighbors began to notice his monthly activities and grew curious. Others, in the custom of the bored and the pompous desperate and eager for anything to relieve them of their misery, began to speculate and whispered among themselves. Fears that he was a witch, or possessed by one. Gossip of a tryst in the night, of rendezvouses in the woods. Of rituals and sacrifices to forgotten gods or other such nonsenses, Yugi did not bother to remember—but it did not stop his curiousity from turning into worry.

He trusted Atem with all his heart and knew well Atem would not keep secrets from him if they were important. And yet, many thing can happen in the dark on a new moon and Yugi could not stop either his worry or his imagination—and he had neither the heart nor the courage to ask his beloved.

Perhaps it was the fact that Atem donned his coat on those nights: a scarlet silk and velvet smoking jacket which he kept safely secured in the closet and Yugi was told never to touch. He never wore it to the market or when the air was cold—only on those new moon nights when he would vanish utterly until the dawn. Yugi could not imagine for what purpose Atem thought to bring it. What mischief or magic did his dear husband work when he wore the garment?

At last, Yugi could bear it no longer and decided there was no other option but to find out for himself. And so as it happened on the next night of the new moon, after the mercantile had closed for the day, their dinner was finished and the dishes clean and cleared and the moonrise was fast approaching, Yugi retired early—or so he told his husband—and waited.

Just as the Twilight flittered across the trees and the sky darkened under the moon, he saw Atem slip from their bed, fetched his scarlet smoking jacket and steal away into the night. Yugi slipped out after him, driven by curiosity and concern and he followed his husband’s fleeting footsteps through the darkness and towards the woods, following the flame of his scarlet smoking jacket draped haphazardly over one shoulder. Yugi followed him at a safe distance until his husband came upon a small clearing vacant of trees.

Hiding behind the undergrowth, Yugi watched, waited. Watched as his beloved spun in the star light. The new moon hanging over head like a shadowy sphere outlined in a mist of silver: a night so dark the stars were their best and brightest. Watched as his lover slipping on his coat, pushed the arms through the sleeves, fastened the pearlescent white buttons, and pulled the collar up about his neck. Watched as the coat glowed softly in the starlight like smoldering embers that caught flame. Watched as the crimson glow surrounded his lover. Watched as his lover’s image began to blur and shrink and fade and change. Watched in utter amazement as a beautiful scarlet-furred fox with a snow white chest and a sleek, bushy tail and mud-brown paws stepped gracefully across the glade, standing where moments earlier his beloved in his scarlet smoking jacket stood.

Yugi as the beautiful creature skipped and darted across the glade, firing up the landscape. His breathtaking coat of flames glowing like embers in the starlight and his bushy tail like a flame itself shedding sparks. Wonderment widened his eyes as his fox lover slipped in and out of threes. Soon he was joined by a second fox and then a third: one, the tawny golden color of dried corn husks and the pale winter sunshine, the second a sleek, shiny silver like the gleaming shimmer of moonlight or the shiniest of silver spoons. He watched as the three vulpines chased and hunted and wrestled and played together and Yugi could not help but wonder with the faintest traces of envy who they were and how they knew his Fox-Husband. And yet he saw no difference in the zealous gusto in which Atem adore them as he did with Yugi himself. And was that not the proof of love?

And then came the singing—a song both haunting and alluring piercing the blackness of the night. All three foxes stood to attention, alert and focused and darted off together, his Fox-Husband leading the way deeper into the glade.

Compelled once more, Yugi crept quietly through the garden, his skills honed by all the years he’d spent with Atem, learning the steps of the forest and how not to disturb the woodlanders who called this ancient, wild place their home. For they, like all mortals were visitors here. He followed the trail trampled into creation by the foxes’ paw prints. Carefully, crept his way up the bank and climbed over a fallen log. The music and sounds of singing—of multiple voices singing—guiding him like a mystical enchantment, the beguiling magic of the woods.

The voices grew loud enough to know he was close. Like any good hunter—or mortal wise enough to observe the doings of the fae at a distance—he stayed down of the wind and slowly, slowly crept up the hillside and just far enough to look over the grassy knoll,

There he saw them, standing in the heart of a clearing over grown with climbing vines whose heart-shaped leaves provided a nest for a bed of glowing white flowers, open like a thousand tiny moons. Donning the flowery chains as crowns and dancing around an enormous bonfire a group of foxes and people with fox features: long pointed ears, clever eyes, and beautiful bushy tails, all dressed in some form of lovely smoking jacket, or waist coat the color of their hair. Some silken and black as the midnight, some wild and tawny-gold as dried corn husks, some gleaming like silver spoons, and some the crimson embers of his beloved’s own scarlet smoking jacket.

Their Fox Skins, Yugi realized, and understood why, Atem has forbidden him to touch his, for to touch a Fox Maid’s pelt was to steal a Selkie or a Swan Maid’s skin—to steal from them their wild heart, their true nature, the deepest, darkest, most precious depth of their soul, their very essence and freedom—it was an unforgiveable sin. And yet as he watched the three foxes he’d seen earlier, the leader of which his own beloved, he could not bring himself to leave, less he never again get this chance to learn the truth of his husband’s secrets.

He watched as his beloved shifted from fox to man, donning his smoking jacket over his shoulders like a cap. Watched as the two behind him did the same. Watched as all the foxes followed suit and gathered ‘round the fire singing hymns in an ancient language that sounded like it was born of the earth: a melody of rocks and trees and birdsong. A sacred prayer of gratitude and sacrifice on the night when the darkness was at its strongest and thus the stars their brightest and all things once more began anew. Realizing, he was not privy to something he had no business watching, Yugi smiled a soft smile and, determined to respect this life that was his beloved’s secret and his privlege began his descent down the hillside.

And then the wind abruptly changed direction.

The singing silenced in an instant. And then the footsteps sounded. Forgoing all manner of stealth, Yugi ran. He ran and ran and scrambled down the hill, leaped over logs and leaves, screeched at ever shadow or flash of eyes only to be blindsided and pushed to the forest floor. He tried to struggle but the body above him was too strong. Then he felt the familiar pungent of spice and mint and wildflowers. He knew that sent. He smelt it every morning on their pillows and inhaled it every night before he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

“Atem.” Yugi opened his eyes and met the sadness of his husband’s just before they were surrounded by foxes.

“’Tis alright,” Atem spoke to them, his voice sad and ethereal like a willow shaking just after a storm. “He is my husband.” There was no masking the disappointment in which he spoke those words.

“Forgive me,” Yugi pleaded his own heart breaking at the trespass he committed against the one who loved him most. “Forgive me for follow you. I saw you slipping away into the night and I was curious and worried and…” he could not deny it. “Afraid. I knew you would not keep secrets from me if they were not important, nor would you betray me but I was so curious and so worried you might not come back. Forgive me.” His eyes flooded with tears and he wept for them both. “Please don’t leave me.” For he knew all too well the fate of those foolish enough to break a _geiss_ to their enchanted wives.

And then he felt soft hands trying his tears. “It is true, you were not meant to learn my secret, for it is only mine to tell, but neither did I speak truth, for I did not wish to swear you to a _geiss_ and have you think I did not trust you.” Atem frowned and pulled the collar of his smoking jacket tighter around him—his fox skin. “But now you know my secret, beloved, and you cannot unlearn it and I did not tell it to you. We cannot go back to the way we were.”

“Please do not leave me,” Yugi begged again.

Atem only smiled. “You broke no _geiss_ , for I did not swear you to one, but now I must place one upon you if your wish is truly for me to stay.”

Hope lifted Yugi’s heart and he nodded, promising all his beloved would ask of him.

“Are you sure” Atem asked, his voice firm, though there was no hint of sorrow. “Will you keep the vow, not yet knowing what it is?”

Yugi nodded. “No price I pay is worth losing you, beloved.”

Atem’s smile returned. “Very well, my love. This is your _geiss_ : first, tonight, after you’ve sworn your vow, you must leave this forest and return to our home and to our bed, and I pray you love do not look back whatever you hear and whatever compulsion ails you must go straight home and straight to our bed. Second, you must promise to never touch my scarlet coat, for you know what it is now and what it means to me and what doing so will mean. And finally, you must never again follow me into the woods after dark unless I summon you, for though I love you, my darling, my heart, I am still a fox.”

He cupped Yugi’s cheek his beautiful wild eyes shown with love and that wonderful passionate zest for life that Yugi loved so much because it was forever untamed. He nodded, and promised all. Promised to never again follow his love into the forest after dark, even if such became a nightly activity, but there was still sorrow in his eyes.

Atem kissed his forehead. “Please, fear not, my love, for you will have me all your days, but the nights will be mine whether I chose to spend them with you or chose to spend them as a fox, but whatever my choice know that it will always be your side I return to, come the dawn.”

Yugi understood then what he was asking, knowing all too well that in every fairy tale where a loved one becomes a creature and their head must be cut off, and it is not love that breaks the spell, though love compels the act. Smiling at his husband he held out his hand and said “Then come and sleep with me when breaks the dawn.”

Yami took his lover’s hand and sliced his thumb with his claw. And so Yugi followed his husband and the skulk of foxes back to the glade where the bonfire still burned in a clearing overgrown with moonflowers and offered three drops of blood to the flames as a promise of his _geiss_ and he listened with an enchanted heat and all the foxes lifted their heads and sang the song of the ancients to the new moon. When it was over, he kept his word and walked back through the woods, tracing the path down the grassy knoll, over the log and through the glade and back through the woods where Atem would take him for walks and look for mushrooms. Walked back towards the park where they picnicked and passed the street that lead to the marina where they’d watched the ships pull into the harbor. He studied the path, the leaves, the windows: studied the world that was suddenly so different though he’d seen it almost every day. Colors seemed brighter, stars seemed muted, the darkness appeared more blue than black like a deep sea, and the world had its own song that both was and wasn’t part of the forest.

More than once that song tempted him to look back. To see if there were foxed stalking him, not trusting him to keep his promise to their own. But when he thought of stopping or looking over his shoulder, or even daring to turn around: he remembered Atem’s promise and the truth of that declaration gave him the strength he needed to continue forward. Past the town and past the mercantile to the cottage they shared together. Once inside, he closed the door, left the bolts unlocked and climbed into their bed.

He did not sleep. Instead, he waited, though exhaustion weighed heavy on his eyes and mind, the worry was a fierce rival and he found himself dreaming of foxes dancing in the forest, and of his beloved in his beautiful crimson fur as bright-eyes as he was when they danced barefoot in the glade or performed the scandalous waltz at once of the Kaiba Family balls. Still he waited through the midnight and the moonrise and into the earliest hours of the morning, until finally the first fringes of the dawn crept over the trees.

And then he heard the door open, the locks unbolt and just as Atem had promised Yugi opened his eyes, to find his Fox Husband lying beside him, his scarlet smoking jacket draped forgotten and lazily over his shoulders like a fur blanket. And though Yugi desperately wanted to reach out and touch his lover, he remembered his promise, smiled and whispered “Atem?” he addressed the man, took note of his tired eyes and his weary form. “Your coat.”

He need not say another word, for Atem rose quickly and placed it haphazardly across a chair, knowing well there was no need to hide it. Them the man, slipped out of shirt and his galoshes and curled up besides Yugi in their bed. Yugi smiled and kissed him and took great comfort in the fact his husband would rather sleep curled up in his arms than in his coat.

And that was how it went. Yugi kept his promised and did not follow his lover into the woods again, nor did he question his nightly comings and goings. And though there were nights when a storm was particularly fierce or a snow particularly cold that he found himself awake and worrying for his lover, Atem kept his word and always it was their bed he returned too, sometimes as a fox, sometimes as a man, sometimes well before dawn, sometimes as it was just peeking over the trees and spilling through the windows. But always, always, the Fox Maid found his way into his lover’s arms. And every morn without being asked he would come and sleep besides him, and join him running the mercantile and tending the garden and doing the chose and sharing the tasks that created a home.

Sometimes, he would even bring his scarlet smoking jacket—and slip it over Yugi’s shoulders.

**Author's Note:**

> I absolutely love this story and how it came out.  
> A few quick notes.
> 
> gueiss: as is tradition with all fairy-bridge stories when one takes a fairy pride they swear a promise to her that if he breaks then he looses her forever: never make her weep three times or strike her three times or never be surprised by what the child does or be kind to the animal she is, never open the door while she's weaving or she must have one day a week to herself which her husband is not to disturb etc. either way he eventually breaks his promise and sees his wife's true form and looses her--fairy marriages it seems are notorious for finding ways to get OUT of them unless its a royal one. In this particular case, Atem swore Yugi to no geiss but as he still betrayed his trust in a way he had to make him swear one in case it happened again.
> 
> As i said this story was was based on the Witch of Fife and Come and Sleep. Both stories feature magical wives and their husbands but while in witch of fife the wife gleefully tells her husband she's a witch she promises to tell him all that go on on her midnight visits (and danm are they awesome) all of which he's indifferent too and wishes se would simply stay home but one night he follows her--cause they raid the bishop's wine cellar and the witches play a trick on her husband and rescue him when he's caught but she makes him promise to never follow her again--as even wives need girl time. He agrees and no longer wishes to know what goes on when his wife leaves the house with her like-minded friends.
> 
> Come and sleep, is my favorite kitsune story: it is the oldest known fox wife story where the emperor falls in love with a maid, marries her and when they go to town and a dog sees her and barks at her she turns into a fox and leaps on the hedge. This story is unique because when her husband finds out the truth of her, he tells her that since they have a child together he does not wish to lose her and to "come and sleep with him" which she does. He names her Kitsune which means come and sleep, but whose kanji also mean fox. The story is unique as the Emperor keeps his fox wife but only at night and broke no promise to her, but unlike the witch's husband he loves and embraces her wild side and respects it. I love this story for that reason.
> 
> As i refused to have Yugi lose Atem over a curious mistake I reverse the story so that he will spend his days with Atem, but Atem's nights are his own whether he choses to spend them with Yugi or as a fox in the woods :) 
> 
> Also foxes are most active during a new moon when the night is darkest, which is why those are the nights Atem goes out.
> 
> As for the ambiguity of that last line...I will let you all speculate ;)


End file.
